Heritage Talks: New Zealand's shrinking passenger railway network with Dr André Brett

[@keacoq]

Thank you for that interesting history of NZ passenger rail.

[@Andrew-zw9fi]

I recently when on Northern Explore from Auckland to Wellington and return , I enjoy my trip , good staff and cafe service, great views , seat little be uncomfortable for 7 hour trip , but main upset was the old rail track on the main trunk line that rocks the carriage side to side making you seasick and hard to drink ,eat and write on the train !

[@davidlipscombe916]

Thank you for such an inspiring Talk on the history of the Railways in New Zealand .

[@peterfinucane8122]

Well put together and presented.

[@garethmccash5986]

I would love to see kiwirail back to where it was back in its heyday.....I would love to have regular, well priced & reliable public train transport as it’ll get many off the roads. However because the money isn’t there (thanks to corporate pirates Fay, Richwhite etc) it won’t be a possibility.

[@garethmccash5986]

That’s all well & good getting people back onto rail but for some people it just won’t work. There is this blanket belief among certain individuals that if something works for one person then it’ll be good for everyone. Can you imagine tradies taking their tools/supplies etc on a train & then having to walk? What about shift workers on metro services when the trains don’t run between midnight/3pm? Ideology is great but it doesn’t work in the real world.

[@FromtheWindowSeat]

True … but that’s why he talks about the benefits of multimodal transport. Many cities are designed around cars … leading to car dependency. You simply don’t have much of a choice. But if you have great public transport, more people (never all) will be able to able to choose public transport (or cycling / walking), thereby reducing congestion for those who need to drive. 🤔

[@tyronstrongman6113]

Obviously its not going to work for everyone, there will still be people that require vehicles and tradies will be among them. I'm 40 next year and if I live to be 80 I'll see this country double in population to over 10,000,000 ... A modern rail network connecting the entire country won't be a pipe dream by then it will be a no brainer, we have to start incrementally with a focus on commuter corridors and urban sprawl but these could be future proofed to be cross country high speed lines reducing not just car dependency but also air dependency. Auckland/Waikato/BOP is the obvious starting point along with Wellington/Manawatu and Canterbury/Queenstown lakes district. Christchurch airport wants to build a new airport close to Wanaka to monopolize air traffic into the South Island when it could do that by building a high speed railway into the Mckenzie country and eventually Queenstown.